85 Miles An Hour
by Shelbecat
Summary: Maria realizes that leaving Roswell with Michael and the others is not as romantic as it seemed.


85 Miles An Hour

She wasn't stupid. There were basic rules to follow when you were trying to escape and number one was ditch the getaway car. She left Brian Giani and his black Buick at a gas station in Trinidad, Colorado. Joseph Trask drove a gold SUV—something suped up and sporty—that swallowed the pavement like a fat kid on Smarties.

The last time she checked the speedometer was cruising past 75 and that was just fine with her. Every mile away from him was another mile back to sanity.

* * *

"Was this really the best vehicle Jesse could find?" Maria shifted on the seat of the worn down van. The vinyl was ribboned with tiny cracks broken only by large tears spilling padding. She just knew it was hitching her skirt; and there was a spring sticking in her butt.

"It's a set of wheels," Michael grumbled. He was sitting beside her on the rear seat, hunched over the seat in front jabbing at a map held by Max.

"I'm just saying it's not in the greatest shape. It'll probably break down before we hit Vegas."

"Look, it's moving okay?" Michael snapped his head around to glare at her. "If it breaks down, I'll fix it. And we aren't going to Vegas."

"I thought that was the plan. Get lost in the crowds."

"What do you think this is? A summer road trip?" His voice took on a hard edge. "We are running from the FBI. We're not stopping to sight see."

Michael turned back to Max while Liz, sitting in front of Maria, flashed her a sympathetic smile.

Maria ignored her and turned to look out the window. This was supposed to be exciting, right? Running off into the great unknown with your boyfriend? There were just a couple of problems—their "unknown" was about as safe as stepping before a firing squad and Maria Deluca didn't have a boyfriend.

* * *

Old Joe was burning up the asphalt outside Santa Fe when Maria decided it was time to ditch him. They were stopping at "the only place that serves decent eggs after midnight" in another 50 miles. She'd let him buy her meal—he _had_ offered—then she'd find the next big rig heading west and catch a ride. Dominique Lazar had an office in L.A. With any luck she was still interested.

She stared out the side window. It had started raining about 30 miles back. Joe was flying at 80 and rivulets of rain on the glass sliced her reflection into horizontal stripes. Gone was the love struck girl who'd packed only a change of underwear and a toothbrush. In her place sat the real Maria Deluca—the girl who knew you didn't find the one true love of your life at 15. That was the stuff of fairy tale dramas and she'd decided long ago that she never wanted to be Cinderella.

* * *

"Last rest stop for 100 miles coming up in five." Kyle was driving and had been dropping not-so-subtle hints about wanting to stop for the last 30 miles.

Maria pushed a clump of sweat-matted hair from her face. "Good, I am in serious need of a bathroom break."

"We are not stopping." Michael's voice left no room for argument.

And Maria didn't care. "We haven't seen a car behind us for three hours. I think we can stop for five minutes."

"Of course you do," he snapped. "It's not your ass they want to lock in a padded room."

Maria opened her mouth to protest but Michael continued. "And it won't be five minutes, it'll be 20…or 30, and by the time we get back on the road, whatever lead we've managed to create will be gone and it'll only take one lucky break on their part to bag themselves three _bona fide_ aliens and two budding specimens. But then that doesn't bother you, does it, because it's not you they're after."

"Michael, that is _not_…"

He interrupted her, "So maybe we should stop. And then you can get out and check your makeup and get whatever passes for herbal tea out here because you're probably in more danger sitting right here next to me."

Maria tried to keep her composure but she felt her slim hold on her temper slipping. Michael's tirade had silenced the entire van and she could feel everyone's eyes boring into her. Even Kyle was ignoring the road and staring at her in the rear view mirror. Only Michael was oblivious to her feelings—tracing a path on the map in his hands and making small notations in the margin.

She couldn't speak. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked rapidly to keep them from falling. She was humiliated—something she didn't think possible in front of the only people she'd ever counted as true friends. Gritting her teeth, she resolved not to show her weakness. No way he was going to make her feel like shit and get away with it. She sucked in a deep breath just as Kyle broke the silence.

"Executive decision—be back on board in ten or this bus leaves without you."

The van slowed to a stop outside of _Dora's Diner_. Michael cursed and looked ready to jump over the seat but it was Max who spoke first.

"Michael's right Kyle. We can't risk a stop."

"Well this baby's been rattling for the last 20 miles so either someone figures out how to look under the hood while we're doing 80 or else we do it here."

"Fuck it. I'll fix it." Michael brushed past Maria and yanked open the van door.

Maria sat still as everyone else piled out after him. She watched as his jaw rippled with anger, tension rolling off his back in waves. She'd left Roswell for this?

She didn't think so.

* * *

Joe was right—this place did make great eggs. Too bad she didn't have an appetite. The rain had let up just before they pulled in but the bad weather seemed intent on chasing her down because it was bouncing off the window ledge now, turning the gravel parking lot into a muddy pool.

She nodded when the waitress offered to refill her tea and pulled the steaming mug closer. There was a cute guy in a muscle shirt sitting at the end of the counter. She'd overheard him reveal his destination as L.A. to the same waitress and as soon as he finished his pie, she was going to hit him up for a ride.

Joe had been a great companion but it was time to switch gears. He'd topped out at 85 miles an hour and made her feel like she was soaring. He'd also talked up all the silence since Colorado and she was going to miss him.

* * *

Maria pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and shook her head—he really could turn off all emotion. All this time, all these years, she'd lived for those moments where he would lower the walls of his fortress and let just a tiny bit of his light shine. She could weather all of the bad days if it meant getting just one moment of truth when he was unguarded.

But today felt different—she felt different. This was the rest of her life she was playing with. She'd talked about being with him forever during countless all night gabfests with Liz but standing on the side of the road watching him try to fix a rundown van that was supposed to be her new home, it suddenly all seemed too real. Was she really willing to bet her happiness on someone who could put her down so effortlessly? Life only dealt you one hand of cards—it was up to you to figure out how to play them.

Maria wasn't sure Michael was worth the gamble.

"Do you really think I just came along for fun?" The wind whipped her hair in front of her face and she fought to keep it out of her eyes.

Michael bent further beneath the hood and remained silent.

She pushed on. "I really want to know Michael." She had to fight to keep her voice even. "Do you actually think I don't care what happens to you? To all of you?"

Michael's voice was tight. "I really don't know." He closed his eyes in concentration as a blue light glowed from his hand.

"Well I really want to know. I want to know if you honestly think I would leave my home and my mother, _my mother_, to come run away with you if I didn't care."

"God damn it." Michael looked up and kicked the tire of the van. "I don't have a clue how this thing is supposed to work."

Maria threw up her hands. "Are you even listening to me?"

"What do you want me to say?" Anger flashed across his face as he turned to her. "That I think you are doing this for all the wrong reasons? That I think you're selfish? Is that what you want to hear? Well fine. I do think you're selfish. We are stuck here in Podunk, Nowhere, with a vehicle that barely runs at the best of times and probably won't even start after I've 'fixed' it, and all you can do is talk about yourself."

"About myself?" Maria's voice rose an octave. "I am trying to talk about us."

"What us?"

"Oh my God." Maria pushed her hands deep into her hair. "Just yesterday you told me that you loved me before riding off into the proverbial sunset. Then today you suddenly show up to save the world and somehow act like you are actually glad when I decide to come with you…and you wonder what us? The _us_ that has always been there. Even when we weren't together something tied us to each other—something intangible but something I always knew was there. Don't tell me you didn't feel the same way."

Michael curled his lip and shrugged before turning back to the van. "What can I say, didn't feel it."

Maria didn't stand a chance at stopping her tears. "Bastard," she hissed.

Michael seemed to stiffen, then buried his head back beneath the hood.

Maria stared at his back, at the round of his shoulder flexing as he periodically blasted a tiny bit of alien energy to some part of the machinery. She'd really thought things would be different this time. This was the crossroads of her life—right here outside _Dora's Diner _on Highway 25 in Colorado she could see two paths stretching out before her. One was back in the van with her tail between her legs until the next time Michael relented and decided to let her inside his heart.

The other was in the shiny black Buick that was filling up on the other side of the pumps.

"Why don't you go get Kyle to explain how this heap works? Then you might stand a chance of fixing it." She caught Michael's eye as he looked up at her, then turned, unblinking, and climb back into the van. He stood there for a minute, then headed for the diner and the other four members of their little group. Halfway there he turned around and caught her watching him.

It was all she could do not to wave goodbye.

* * *

For the first five miles Maria stared out the back window. For the next twenty she bit her nails and wondered how long it would take him to find her. It wasn't until she switched rides and settled in with Joe that she realized he wasn't coming. Then reality set in and she started to cry.

Mr. Take-Me-to-La-La-Land was climbing aboard his rig when Maria asked him for a ride. He took one look at her standing there in her graduation skirt and high heels and opened his door a little wider. She shot him a smile and rushed back to Joe's car for her bag.

She was halfway back across the parking lot when she heard Joe's voice behind her. "Not going to join me in Phoenix?"

She stopped, turned, and shot him a sad smile. "What I want isn't in Phoenix. It probably isn't in L.A. either, but I've got to try something."

"I get it. You'll know what you're looking for when you find it, right?"

"Something like that."

"Well good luck Miss Maria Deluca." He walked over to her and pushed a clump of wet hair from her face. "And thank you for the lovely company."

Maria felt tears rush her eyes. He'd been a sweet old guy to spend a couple of hours with and she'd miss him chatting away next to her. "Thanks…for everything."

"Any time."

She turned to walk towards her new ride, Mr. Trey Parker, trucker extraordinaire, when Joe spoke up again.

"Can I just give you one piece of advice?"

She stopped.

"If you've got to fight this hard to run away, maybe you shouldn't be running at all."

Maria looked at Trey settling into the cab. It looked like a comfortable ride and she bet it could do 85 without straining a gear. But Joe had been a better listener than she thought; leaving home to make it big in L.A. was a plausible story for any high school grad, but apparently she couldn't hide the heartbreak written all across her face. Joe knew hours ago what she had just figured out for herself—Trey was headed west to L.A. and her heart was back on Highway 25 headed north away from Roswell.

Tears dripped from her eyes, mingling with the rain on her cheeks. Turning towards Joe, she smiled softly. "You still want some company?" Her voice broke and her shoulders shook as sobs racked her body. Joe stepped forward and put his arm around her shoulders. Patting her back reassuringly, he led her towards the restaurant with promises of killer homemade apple pie. She was smiling through her tears as they stepped back inside. Maybe this was for the best; her mother would kill her for running away, but she'd forgiven her for worse before. Maybe she could move to Las Cruces, enroll in school for design or something. It wasn't life with Michael, but maybe it was the way things were meant to be.

Maria stooped down and slipped into their booth, her hand brushing against a piece of material on the vinyl seat.

"What…" She looked down at the object beside her—it was her jacket…the jacket she had left back in the van with Michael.

"Shit."

"What is it?" Joe was flagging down the waitress for a coffee refill.

"It's uh…it's nothing, I just…" She shot him a reassuring smile. "Will you excuse me? Ladies room." She grabbed her jacket and bag and slid out of the booth as Joe nodded and ordered up two pieces of pie.

Walking quickly, she headed down the corridor past the kitchen, towards the washrooms, then, stopping to look over her shoulder, she slipped out the back door and stopped.

He was there. Standing just at the edge of the covered walkway, a curtain of rain falling down behind him.

"What are you doing here?"

Michael jammed his hands deeper into his pockets. "You left your jacket."

"My jacket?" No, no way. He didn't. "You followed me across the state to bring me my jacket?"

He shook his head. "You shouldn't have taken off like that. Liz thought somebody kidnapped you."

"Oh yeah? What did you think?" Her lips were pursed tight together now. No way he was chastising her again and getting away with it.

He ignored the question. "I just needed to make sure you were okay. And you are, so…" He turned away from her.

"Wait!" She stepped closer to him, noting the way his hair was plastered to his head, the way his jacket hugged his body like a second skin. "Why did you really come?"

"I told you…"

"My jacket, right, and I suppose me running wild across the country with the precious alien secret had nothing to do with it."

Michael turned, his eyes flashing in the light hung over the door. "If you wanted to turn us in, you would have done it by now. So either I'm a walking dead man, or our secret's safe forever. Don't think you can hold it over my head."

Maria felt like she'd been slapped in the face. It was the first sign of real emotion Michael had shown since they'd left Roswell. Unfortunately it was the same stubborn ass-logic he loved to spout in moments of high tension. "I'm not holding anything over your head. You're the one that thought I'd be safer on the side of the road somewhere rather than in that van with you. I did you a favor."

"Oh yeah, running off across the country without telling one person where you were going, huge favor Maria, thank you."

"Well what did you expect me to do? Stay there and take your shit for the next thousand miles? I don't think so."

Michael bit his lip and pushed his hands through his hair. "It is always about you, isn't it? About your feelings and your hardships; the FBI wants to pin my ass to a wall, or did you miss that bulletin?"

"I got the bulletin, loud and clear; it still doesn't give you the right to treat me like shit when I gave up everything for you."

"What everything?" He was shouting now. "You broke up with me! Way to make a sacrifice."

"And then I came back! And I told you how I felt. And I left! I left everything, today, with you and everyone—I just left. I didn't even say goodbye to my mother and you're asking me about sacrifices? What do you know about it, you didn't leave anyone."

She regretted the words the second they left her lips. His face told her she'd struck a chord—his mouth fell open, his head shaking just slightly as if he couldn't quite believe what he'd heard.

"I'm sorry. Shit. I didn't mean it." She moved to put a hand on his chest but he backed away, out into the rain.

"Don't."

"Michael…"

"Just…" He looked over his shoulder into the darkness. "Leave it."

Closing her eyes, she dropped her head to her chest. She hadn't meant to hurt him, not really; he just infuriated her. He was so…so…

So Michael. So typically Michael. The exact same person she'd fallen in love with almost three years before—and now suddenly she was expecting him to change?

Moving to the edge of the porch, she reached out to grasp his arm, pulling him to her. His hand slipped out of his pocket but he remained standing beyond her, rain soaking through to his skin.

"Please."

Slowly he met her eyes and stared. Then he shrugged her off and stepped further away. It was obvious he was finished with her.

She only had one card left to play.

"What are you really doing here Michael?" She had to raise her voice to reach him over the wind. "You made it perfectly clear how you felt, so why? Why would you follow me?"

His shoulders hunched up to ward off a chill and she couldn't stand it any longer.

"Come here." Stepping into the rain, she pulled him back towards her, turning him so that he couldn't avoid looking at her. "We can't keep doing this—this driving the other away and then running to take them back. It's not right."

He averted his eyes downwards.

Gripping both of her hands around his, she pleaded to make sense of this crazy night. "When you left, you told me that you'd always love me. And I believed you. It was a pretty shitty way to say goodbye, but I believed you. I never gave up on us, even when we were apart, we were still together in our hearts. I know you felt that."

She waited, hopping he would acknowledge her words, but he remained silent. She pressed on. "Now it seems like you're the one who's giving up, and you know what? That's okay. If that's what you want, after all these years, then I'll respect that and you'll never have to see me again. Tell me you were lying when you said you loved me and it's over. I'll walk away."

His eyes flitted up to hers, hung there for a brief instant, then dropped to the ground again.

Slowly she let her hands slip from his; she couldn't force him to want this, he had to want it for himself.

"I didn't…" His voice caught in his throat and he coughed.

Her eyes found his in the moment and hung onto the hope she saw there.

"I didn't come here to take you back."

Okay, so she wasn't expecting that.

He shook his head quickly, standing up a little straighter. "We should go to Vegas, or L.A. Get you all set up in an apartment and then I can split. You won't have to worry about us."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "That's what you want?"

"It's what's best."

"Yeah?" She chewed her bottom lip, then spat, "Well screw what's best. I'm sick and tired of doing what's best for everyone else. For once I'd like to do what's best for me…for us."

"The best place for you to be is somewhere far away from me. You know it."

"That's what you really believe?" She blinked her eyes as she felt the threat of tears. "Fine. If that's what's best then I'll do it myself. You go back to the others, tell them you failed or something."

"I'm not going back to them."

"Oh right, like Max is going to let you run off by yourself."

Michael shrugged. "He doesn't have a choice. After you left, I borrowed a car, told Isabel to find me in her dreams, and took off. They're probably in Kansas by now."

Maria exhaled slowly. He'd left them. The family he'd sworn to protect and he'd just left them—for her. That ranked pretty high marks in her books.

"So I guess that means your answer is no?"

"No what?"

"No you weren't lying?"

Rocking back on his heels, Michael crossed his arms over his chest. "I told you the truth."

She puffed out her cheeks, took a step to the side, then looked at him seriously. "If we are going to do this we only get one big fight a month. And you can watch all the sports you want but you have to do the dishes; it's torture on my nails."

Michael's face fell into a look of surprise, then his mouth curled upwards into a smile.

"And don't think you're getting laid every other night. Buy me flowers, vacuum, oh, and give me a foot rub—then we'll talk."

"Is that all?" Michael peeled himself away from the wall and looked down at her.

"Almost. No sweaty socks on the bedroom floor. We'll have a laundry basket and you'll use it. And I won't wash windows, the streaks…"

Her words were lost to his mouth as he crushed down upon her. It only took seconds to melt in his arms, her hands snaking up to tangle in his hair. "You know," she licked her lips as she paused for breath. "I always liked this plastered to the head look, you should do that again."

"Is that an order?"

"No, that's just free advice. Trust me, the hair's been better."

Smiling up at him, she pulled the jacket he'd been so intent on returning tight around her. Michael grabbed her bag from the ground and took her hand in his. Dashing through the rain, Maria laughed when she saw the car he'd 'borrowed'—a maroon Jetta. Fitting.

As she slipped inside, she looked back at the restaurant and saw Joe staring out the window towards her. He couldn't see her, but she waved anyway; in his own way he'd helped her find her way back to Michael, back to the arms she'd always known she belonged in.

She smiled across the darkened seat at Michael sitting beside her. She didn't know where they were headed but it didn't matter. With a few alien tweaks she was sure the Jetta could do 85—and after that everything would be just fine.


End file.
